A Beginner Guide to Web Designers to Design iPhone App in Photoshop

In the era of technological advancement, the 21st century is witnessing a tectonic shift in the technology market. Professionals always need to keep ready for a knowledge shift. Since the launch of the revolutionary Apple app store in 2008, the technology market has witnessed a major shift from web technology to mobile technology. Here we are about to learn to design an iPhone app using Photoshop. Adobe Photoshop is a graphic designing tool widely used by web designers.

The design elements seen in Photoshop on desktop computers may not appear same on iPhone screens with default Photoshop settings. For this, need to adjust some settings in Photoshop.

1. Change Preferences for Guides, Grid & Slices

As in high resolution retina screens of iPhone 2 px lines look as 1 pt, make the minimum grid lines split in 2 px.

Go to,
Photoshop >> Preferences >> Guides, Grid & Slices

Fill for Gridline Every ’20’ pixels and Subdivisions ’10’ pixels. In this way, one line appears every 2 px.

2. Configure Snap

Select Snap to All. This will ensure all objects moved will snap to the 2 px grid.

Then configure your Shapes Tool, select Snap to Pixels.

3. Configure Color Settings

Proper caution should be taken to make sure all colors used in the design should look same across the devices. Usually, different software utilities used in managing color on different devices report different color irrespective of the original one. This issue can be resolved by turning off the default RGB mode in Photoshop files. Following steps should be followed while designing your app for iOS devices.

d. File Saving Configuration

4. Screen Sizes

Different iPhone device versions have different screen sizes. While designing for such a device, it is important to remember the screen sizes. Here is a glimpse,

iPhone 7 Plus has same screen size as of iPhone 6 Plus. To keep yourself updated and follow the Apple app store submission guidelines, the documentation on iOS design principles should be followed.

By using above Photoshop settings web designers can start designing iPhone apps. The principle of incorporating the design into the code is as it is for the web. For quicker and hassle free design-implementation, there are tools available to convert the Photoshop design into the app screen design. These tools are chargeable, better use the manual method at least initially.